The interview produced a crisis in Berlin. After several agitated meetings the Foreign Office decided to publish the instructions to Prince Reuss, restricting Bismarck’s welcome, in order to show that the old man was merely lashing out in spitefulness, but this merely resulted in a boomerang. Public opinion was outraged by the meanness of the Foreign Office minute, and swung whole-heartedly behind the Prince. Overnight he achieved a popularity he had not enjoyed for years; and at last the Kaiser saw that his only course was to swallow his pride and try to make peace. A few months later Bismarck fell ill, and William offered him a palace in which to recuperate. But the Prince was not to be won so easily. “With the profoundest acknowledgement of Your Majesty’s most gracious interest… but feel that my recovery will be best assisted by the domestic surroundings long familiar to me.” The Kaiser persisted; first, a bottle of Rhine wine, then, in January 1894, an invitation to a Birthday Reception in Berlin. This time Bismarck accepted and attended the function accompanied by his son, Herbert. The reconciliation was only skin-deep. The Kaiser kissed his ex-Chancellor on both cheeks and showed him unflagging attention, but was careful to talk only of trivialities. However, as far as the world was concerned, peace was restored.
Eulenburg had played a leading part in restoring harmony, and Holstein found it hard to forgive him. His letters bristled with antagonism and Eulenburg wrote on one of them: “Smothered rage! If I were not what I am friend Holstein would throw me overboard!” Now that the Emperor was on speaking terms with Bismarck, Holstein scented his return to power in every event that took place. He drove Eulenburg nearly to distraction. The Count was not strong physically and suffered badly from nerves. At times it seemed as though he would crack under the strain. In March 1894 he wrote in his diary: “I spent literally the whole day in the Foreign Office which seems to me more and more like hell. Under old Bismarck one was disgusted by the terrifying fluttering at the thought of Jupiter’s approach, and the disagreeable capricious treatment of subordinates. But now the fear of ‘his’ possible return and Herbert’s terrorism dominated every councillor, secretary, understrapper — unity of command is lacking because H.M. has no unity in himself… Everyone snapping at everyone else, hating everyone else, lying about everyone else, betraying everyone else — they are drawing the chariot of State, indeed, but not for love of the poor Emperor who really means well, and yet is forever stirring up the State soup-kettle with his self-invented spoon, and preventing it from turning into any sort of soup at all…” A month later further prods from Holstein drew a deeper cry of despair. “More frequently than ever I feel as if I were living in a mad-house. Insane narrow-mindedness — insane controversies — insane arrogance. Bedlam — Bedlam — Bedlam!”[121]
Early in 1894 a journal called Kladderadatsch began to report the “bedlam” in a series of anonymous articles which proved highly diverting to its readers. Holstein was described as “Friend Oyster,” his subordinate at the Foreign Office, Herr Kiderlen-Wachter, as “Cock-sparrow,” and Eulenburg as “Count Troubadour.” The three men were depicted as the clique that guided the Emperor’s hand, and not only were held up to ridicule but many of their private conversations were reproduced. Obviously, the articles were written by someone close to them. Holstein was beside himself with anger. He held repeated consultations with Eulenburg and Kiderlen and fastened his suspicions first on one person and then on another. One day it was his own chief, Baron von Marschall, then it was Herbert Bismarck, then Count Henckel, a gentleman who had invested money in a paper affiliated with the offending publication. Count Kiderlen challenged the editor of Kladderadatsch to a duel and wounded him but Holstein was not satisfied; after all, the editor was not the real culprit. Instead he challenged Henckel, but the Count insisted that he was innocent and refused to fight. Holstein then put pressure on Eulenburg to ask the Emperor to interfere and force Henckel to fight. Eulenburg began to worry, fearing “that Holstein will hate the Emperor now, if His Majesty does not admit the case against Henckel, and a ‘Holstein-hate’ for the Emperor would lead to very serious consequences.” However, the Emperor refused to be drawn into the controversy, and the perpetrators of the attacks remained undetected. Years later, when it no longer mattered, two junior members of the Foreign Office, who had a room near Holstein, boasted that they had been the authors.
Philip Eulenburg’s presentiment proved correct. William’s refusal to involve Count Henckel in the affair, combined with his attempts to reconcile Prince Bismarck, induced in Holstein a deep hostility for the Kaiser which later spread to the Kaiser’s best friend — Count Eulenburg himself.
Chapter 6. The Kaiser, the Prince and England
The German Emperor cut an imposing figure when he visited Cowes each summer to take part in the Regatta. “I sat next to William who made himself most agreeable,” wrote Princess May, the future Queen Mary of England, in the summer of 1893. “Fancy me, little me, sitting next to William, the place of honour!”
The Emperor’s arrival was always impressive. When the imperial yacht Hohenzollern entered the harbour, escorted by a group of German warships, the Royal Navy gave it a twenty-one-gun salute and the hundreds of private craft, lying at anchor, dipped their pennants. From then on there was an elaborate round of festivities; the Queen gave a state banquet at Osborne, the Prince entertained nightly at the Royal Yacht Club, German and British bands vied with each other to serenade the townspeople, the two navies exchanged a flow of hospitality, and hostesses fought with each other to fill the gaps.
William II enjoyed himself so much at Cowes that he attended the Regatta every summer between 1889 and 1895. When the Queen realised that his visits were becoming a yearly fixture she tried to discourage him, for she was always fearful lest too much intimacy with someone of his explosive nature might lead to unpleasant incidents. In 1892 she sent a message to the British Ambassador in Berlin, Sir Edward Malet, and asked if he could not drop a hint “that these regular annual visits are not quite desirable.” Apparently Sir Edward could not, for nothing was said and the Kaiser continued to come.
The Queen’s ministers were in favour of the visits. They felt it was better to know what the Kaiser was about than to be taken by surprise. Besides, the Queen had a salutary effect on her grandson. She handled him with tact and firmness and he showed more respect for her than for anyone else. Indeed, when Victoria visited Darm-staft in the early summer of 1892 Lord Salisbury asked if she could not arrange a meeting with the Emperor, for he was in a nervous excitable mood over the growing friendship between Russia and France, and might do something foolish unless the Queen calmed him down. But Victoria refused to comply. “No, no. I really cannot go about keeping everyone in order,” she said.
The Prince of Wales always acted as host to the Kaiser. He received very little assistance from his wife, Alexandra, who loathed all Germans in general and William in particular. She repeatedly wrote to her sister, the Czarina of Russia, how untrustworthy he was and freely aired her opinions to her children. Ever since Frederick’s funeral, she had refused to set foot in Berlin, and when the Prince was obliged to pay a state visit to Germany in 1890 he took his son George instead. “And so my Georgie boy has become a real life filthy bluecoated Puklehaube German soldier!!!” wrote Alexandra when she learned that George had been awarded the honorary command of a Prussian regiment. “I never thought to have lived to see that! But never mind; as you say, it could not have been helped — it was your misfortune and not your fault — and anything was better — even my two boys being sacrificed!!! — than Papa being made a German Admiral — that I could not have survived — you would have had to look for your poor old Mother dear at the bottom of the sea, the first time he adorned himself with it!”[122]
So the Prince of Wales bore the brunt of the Kaiser’s annual trips. He had to dance constant attendance, racing with him by day and entertaining him by night. Even when his nephew was at his most affable he did not really get on with him. He found his jokes irritating and his sudde
n impulses disconcerting. Queen Victoria, on the other hand, was often greatly amused by William’s unconventional behaviour. Once when he was lunching at Osborne with a few members of the family the Duke of Connaught asked the Queen if he could show her the new equipment that was proposed for the army. “We found the Royal Family talking together,” wrote the Prince of Wales’s secretary, Sir Frederick Ponsonby, “and at once the Duke of Connaught sent for the sergeant, who came in looking rather uncomfortable in his dark green full-dress uniform over which various khaki belts and straps had been put. It all looked very odd. The Duke of Connaught walked around explaining the object of the different straps to the Queen, while the German Emperor merely nodded and grunted to signify that he understood the explanations. I thought that this was all there was to be done, but the Emperor had not had his say. He called me up and asked whether I did not think the greatcoat that was rolled up was too high, and whether it would not interfere with a man firing his rifle lying down. Without waiting for an answer he told the sergeant to lie down and get into a firing position. He then proceeded to lie down alongside and point out that even with a Rifleman’s head-dress, which was flat at the back, the greatcoat prevented his putting his head back far enough. He maintained that with a helmet or Picklehaube it would be impossible. It was a very hot afternoon and beads of perspiration broke out on the sergeant’s face as he found himself lying down in front of the Queen with the German Emperor lying down beside him glaring at him and plying him with questions without ever giving him time to answer them. However, all this was intended for the Queen’s edification and she seemed very much amused…”[123] The Prince of Wales resented the attention that the Kaiser always managed to attract. He found it annoying to be pushed off the centre of the stage by a nephew twenty years younger. Like most royalties he was a stickler for etiquette, and enjoyed the adulation and awe which his high position provoked; and William seemed to revel in snatching the place of honour to which his higher rank entitled him. When the Prince made him a member of the Royal Yacht Club William started to interfere in everything, including the handicapping, and Edward morosely referred to him as “The Boss of Cowes” and told a friend: “The Regatta was once a pleasant holiday for me but now that the Kaiser has taken command it is nothing but a nuisance…”
The truth was that the two men were wholly incompatible. The Prince of Wales was more pompous in his public life, more unconventional in his private. The Kaiser could be almost alarmingly direct and friendly when he chose to be, but underneath he was a Prussian and a Puritan and his uncle was almost everything he disliked. He was soft and fat and self-indulgent, and even at 55 had a sharp eye for the ladies. He adored Paris because of the pleasures it offered, a city which William regarded as corrupt and immoral, and worse still, he had no military knowledge and had grown too heavy to sit upon a horse. Once William referred to him in front of a group of English dignitaries as “an old peacock,” and another occasion chided him at a dinner party for never having seen active service. And when one of the Prince’s friends was accused of cheating at baccarat in 1891, and the affair was aired in the press because of a libel suit and became a national scandal, William could not resist writing “Uncle Bertie” that it was not fitting for him to gamble in the company of subalterns half his age.
Most galling to William, however, was the fact that the Prince, despite his short-comings, was the darling of Europe. As Heir Apparent to the British throne he was regarded as the unofficial leader of society and was feted and acclaimed wherever he went, often creating far more stir than a reigning sovereign. His clothes were copied, his gastronomical preferences studied, even his mannerisms were imitated. His popularity was largely due to his charm, which, according to the son of Queen Victoria’s secretary, amounted to genius. “With a dignified presence, a fine profile (as his coins show) and a courtly manner, he never missed saying a word to the humblest visitor, attendant or obscure official. He would enter a room, and with the skill of an accomplished billiard player, look forward several strokes ahead, so that no one was left out. The appropriate remark, the telling phrase and the amusing joke, accompanied by a gurgling laugh to the close friend, made all delighted even to watch him…”[124]
What was curious about the Kaiser’s relations with his uncle was the fact that William credited him with far more brains and ability than English people did. The Kaiser saw him as a mischievous, Machiavellian figure, weaving plots against Germany because of his beloved France; and he did not doubt his shrewdness or his grasp of foreign affairs. English politicians and courtiers would have been astonished at this appraisal, for although they regarded Edward as a charming good-natured prince, they were highly critical of his frivolous nature and his mental capacity. They knew how disappointed the Queen was in her son’s character and how despite his pleading she still refused to employ him in a responsible position, or even, for that matter, to allow him to see the Cabinet papers. At Cowes in 1892 he was so depressed by his mother’s disregard that his secretary sent a letter to Sir Henry Ponsonby: “The Prince of Wales writes to me that there is not much use his remaining on at Cowes as he is not the slightest use to the Queen; that everything he says or suggests is pooh-poohed and that his sisters and brothers are much more listened to than he is. All this is a pity and not very encouraging.”[125]
Later the same year, when the Liberals came to power and the eighty-two-year-old Mr. Gladstone formed a government, he informed the Queen that he had arranged for the Prince to see the Cabinet papers. He was under the impression that this was normal practice, but Victoria reacted sharply. She wrote to Lord Salisbury asking if such a principle had ever been followed and when he replied in the negative she let Mr. Gladstone know that “nothing of the kind was done, or ought it to be done.” Her secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, felt she was wise to take this stand. “With regard to public questions, the reading of confidential papers and responsible official work being found for the Prince, the Queen was undoubtedly justified,” wrote Ponsonby’s son and biographer. “She had measured his capacities and inclinations and knew that nothing could be expected from him in this direction.”
The Kaiser’s appraisal of his uncle’s ability was far nearer the truth than the patronising pronouncements of Victoria’s officials, yet he was not the power that William imagined. It is interesting that the Kaiser had no inkling of the strained relations that often existed between mother and son and no understanding of the trepidation with which the Prince approached her. He had no fear of his grandmother himself, and it never occurred to him that the Prince felt differently. Once, through a characteristic lack of consideration, he made things awkward for his uncle. “His Imperial Majesty the German Emperor and H.R.H. the Prince of Wales were to have dined with the Queen last evening,” reported The Times in August 1893, “but were unavoidably delayed by taking part in the race to Portland and joined Her Majesty later in the evening.”
The truth of the story was that the Kaiser was racing his yacht Meteor I against the Prince’s new cutter Britannia. When the yachts were off Sandown the wind dropped and it did not look as though they would be back before midnight. Baron Eckardstein, a member of the German Embassy, was on the Prince’s yacht and heard him say that since the Queen was giving a banquet in the Kaiser’s honour, they must abandon the race and return to Cowes by train. The Prince signalled the Meteor: “Propose abandon race and return by train so as to reach Osborne in time for dinner.” To which the Kaiser replied: “I object. Race must be fought out. It doesn’t matter when we reach Cowes.” The Prince came to Baron Eckardstein much distressed. “The Queen,” he said, “will not understand the Kaiser’s behaviour. Besides, he seems to have forgotten that she is giving this big dinner in his honour.” “He then asked me,” wrote Eckardstein, “whether I couldn’t signal to the Kaiser’s suite and get someone to point this out to him. Though I felt very dejected at the Kaiser’s bad manners, I couldn’t help smiling at this idea. The Prince understood at once and said: ‘I suppose if you
did what I suggest you would wake up the day after to-morrow at latest in the Legation at Timbuctoo.’”[126] There was nothing to do but continue the race. Fortunately the breeze revived but the party did not arrive at Cowes until nine and at Osborne until ten. The Queen had finished dinner and was just coming into the reception room. “As she took her seat,” wrote Eckardstein, “Prince Henry whispered to me: ‘The Queen is in a very bad temper.’ Soon after that the Kaiser appeared, followed by his suite, kissed hands and apologised for being so late. The Queen smiled graciously but showed by her manner she was not pleased with her grandson. A few minutes later the Prince hurried into the room in full uniform, but took cover for a moment behind a pillar, wiping the perspiration from his forehead before he could summon up courage enough to come forward and make his bow. The Queen only gave him a stiff nod, and he retreated at once behind the pillar again.
The Kaiser Page 14